Garvan Walshe: Merkel stood firm against her party’s worst instincts on immigration. And paid the price.

What would the lesser men who would bring her down have done: put migrants on sealed trains in their tens of thousands and send them – where, exactly?

Henry Newman: A dozen reasons to unstop the backstop

It now the main issue blocking a negotiated agreement – thus risking a No Deal and potentially a harder Irish border. In short, it risks triggering the very thing it is supposed to avoid.

Merkel will rescue the Prime Minister. Where have we heard that before?

The German Chancellor was stronger then than she is now. And there’s no guarantee that any compromise she might push would work.

Immigration is tearing at the foundations of the EU’s old established order

Merkel is threatened. Macron is outraged. Brussels is paralysed. And all three trends are taken by their opponents as signs that they are winning.

Damaged by last year’s election. Playing for time. Grappling with revolts – and resignation threats. We refer, of course, to Merkel.

The German Chancellor faces a rebellion from her Bavarian allies on the question of immigration – and is pleading for more time before the EU summit.

Daniel Hannan: Being good at governing is no guarantee of re-election – just ask Harper and Key

Voters habitually opt for parties of the Right when times are tough, only to ditch them for the Left once there’s money to spare. But now populists seek to break the cycle.

There is danger now in Germany of a weak, centrist government – with extremists flourishing on both sides

Merkel has appalled her own followers by making sweeping concessions to the Social Democrats.

A new grand coalition in Germany may be a boon for AfD

If both of the main parties remain locked together in an unpopular pact, it creates more space in which new challengers can grow.

The destruction of German conservatism by Merkel and Kohl

Conventional German politics is still paralysed because being German is still almost impossibly difficult, and being European is pretty difficult, too.

Merkel is doomed – but will not be replaced soon enough to help Brexit

The German consensus which placed no significant party to the right of the CDU, thus bolstering it as a governing force, is breaking down.

Interview: Letwin says the Brexit talks could well fail – and every minister must prepare for this

He discusses his new book, Hearts and Minds, in which he traces the change in Conservative ideas from Thatcher to Cameron and beyond.

WATCH: Merkel – “We would like to win the voters of the AfD back”

The German Chancellor on the exit polls that show her set for a fourth term – but with Alternative für Deutschland winning 13 per cent of the vote.

Iain Dale: As May speaks in Florence, I’m here in Berlin – watching Merkel preparing her own return to office

Plus: Osborne’s regrets, vintage Heseltine – and, after Germany, to Brighton, for what is claimed to be the biggest conference Labour has ever held.

The irony of the EPP outflanking the Tories on the right

Cameron’s decision to leave the federalist, centre-right bloc was bewailed by Remainers. How do they feel about its call for a continent-wide ban on veils?

Germany’s Christian Democrats must contend with a split on the right

The rise of AfD poses a strategic challenge to the CDU: try to re-unite the right and lose voters to the left, or stick to Merkel’s guns and cede territory to an insurgent new force?